‘Big light in this dark world’: Friends mourn disabled Irvine man who police say was stabbed by ex-caretaker

The caregiver accused of fatally stabbing his disabled, former client in the victim’s Woodbridge home Monday did so “out of the blue,” having no known dispute with the man, Irvine police said on Tuesday, August 6.

The suspect, Aaron Matthew Shindle, 47, crashed his gold Honda Odyssey minivan into the garage door before entering the house and stabbing John Alexander Bash III, to death, authorities said.

“According to what we know, there was no beef,” Sgt. Karie Davies said Tuesday. “According to the victim’s family, this was out of the blue. This is something our detectives are going to have to figure out.”

Police later said they shot and killed Shindle when he confronted him with a knife less than a half-mile away.

As police tried to understand what led to the attack, a picture of Bash as fun-seeking, resilient and determined began to emerge Tuesday.

Bash was paralyzed from the waist down, after a spinal cord injury to his C-6 vertebrae after he dove headfirst into shallow waters while swimming at Lake Havasu on August 14, 2015.

“He was a very big light in this dark world,” said Jenny Keifer Stidham, who met Bash 15 years ago in Newport Beach when she was promoting Sharkey’s restaurant. “He was just a genuinely good person.”

Bash’s social media pages are full of photos of him smiling broadly from his wheelchair while surrounded by large groups of friends at festivals, parties and dinners.

Stidham and her husband Michael kept in touch with Bash even after she relocated to Las Vegas and then Arizona. Whenever she was back in California, or he was in Nevada, Bash would “literally drop whatever” to come see her and her husband.

Bash was a “big foodie” and always had a restaurant recommendation on hand, the couple said. He was also an avid festival-goer, even after his injury.

And he made sure he was at the Stidhams’ wedding, even though he had to maneuver the wheelchair onto a boat.

“He was dealt a bad deck of cards,” Michael Stidham said, “but he persevered and made the best out of it.”

Prior to his accident, Bash worked as a loan officer, then pivoted to become the CEO of Destination Vacation, a vacation home rental company, and vice president of Calimingo Pools, a luxury pool and outdoor space company, according to the Stidhams and his LinkedIn profile.

A neighbor who lives across the street in Woodbridge said she heard helicopters circling the area on Monday shortly after the attack. The woman, who declined to be named, recalled Bash as kind, and that he was active before his accident.

Every morning, she said, she would see Bash in his wheelchair, taking his companion dog for a walk.

The golden Labrador retriever was placed with a family member, police said.